(first posted 7/21/2014) Bruce Mohs was obviously a visionary, anticipating future automotive trends long before they took root. That probably explains why no one actually bought any of his Ostentatienne Opera Sedans back in 1967; it was just too far ahead of its time, although I could well see the Beatles driving a psychedelic-painted one in their Magical Mystery Tour movie.

It had all the requisite features of a blinged-out Escalade: a genuine truck chassis by International, giant 20″ wheels, over-the top styling and gobs of bling and gold. But the Ostentatienne went even further than that; it had such an overwhelming presence, one that would make it the ultimate “look-at-me-mobile” today. Maybe its time has finally come.

Mohs owned a seaplane service company in Madison, Wisconsin. Just how he happened upon the idea of a the Ostentatienne Opera Sedan is a matter of wild speculation; but then LSD was still legal in 1967.

The Ostentatienne was built on an International truck chassis with a 119″ wheelbase, and measured a massive 90″ wide, 69″ tall, 246″ long, and weighed some 6100 lbs. As best as I can tell, its front axle was also a truck solid beam unit. The Opera Sedan must have been a leisurely affair, as it was powered by a 250 hp 304 CID V8. Seems to me that the Ostentatienne deserved to have had the really big 549 CID big International V8; now that would have done the massive hood justice.

The only entrance was a fold-up central rear door, which allowed heavy steel girders to be placed on the sides of the body as a safety feature.

The actual seating space for such a monstrous car is not all that generous. But the visibility is splendid.

Given the lack of real pillars, the roof appears to be cantilevered. Mohs was a bit obsessed on safety, which explains some of the protuberances and such. But the cantilevered roof probably didn’t give much roll-over protection.

But there’s genuine walnut on the dash. There’s also 110V power, a fridge, and other amenities not customary in mere automobiles, like “isle lights” (SIC). Maybe that’s something seaplanes have, to light up an island?

Was the Mohs the true inspiration for the whole pimp-mobile/Superfly era that soon came to dominate our urban automotive culture? It certainly seems that way, given the timing. Let’s stop giving the Mark III or Eldorado the credit for that. Who would have imagined Madison, Wisconsin being the source of such a major design trend.

I remember reading about the Mohs in 1967, in a Car and Driver article. It left an indelible impression, needless to say. Only this one prototype was ever built, which given its original asking price of $19,600 ($135k adjusted) is not too surprising. But nowadays plenty of blingy luxury cars cars sticker for that and more, which makes the Ostentatienne look almost like a bargain. Where can one buy this kind of exclusivity for that?

And with a rear entrance at that.

The prototype, still owned by Bruce Mohs, was looking something less than ostentatious after being stored for decades, so in 2009, two Wisconsin high schools undertook a restoration.

The 20″ truck wheels are very obvious without their wheel covers. And the Mohs is still riding on its original 20″ whitewall truck tires; good luck finding replacements for those. But the Ostentatienne Opera Sedan is roadworthy again, and Bruce Mohs can once again ply the ‘hoods of Madison in the style that he is accustomed to. I’d suggest keeping the speed down a bit, given those 47 year old tires.

If that wasn’t enough, Mohs was back at it in 1973 with the Safarikar. The front end looks rather familiar, but the rest was a cornucopia of the absurd. Just what did they put in the water up in Madison? The Safarikar was less ambitious, obviously based on an International Travelall. It was a “dual cowl phaeton, with “skin” of Naugahyde stretched over foam padding. A safety feature? The doors opened outwards on sliding rods, again for alleged side-impact protection. Must have been fun stepping over those rods to get out or in. Not very safe…

I’ll let this poster speak for itself. I thought the Safarikar was a bit of a let-down after the Ostentatienne, but how could that possibly be topped? Mohs should have quit while he was ahead; there was simply no way to top the Ostentatienne, then or now.

Both Mohs are build on Travelall 10×0 chassis which means they have the torsion bar IFS.

In 1967 the 304 was the middle of International’s “Small V” engine family, the 266 was still in production and the 392 hadn’t appeared yet.

The other thing to consider is how long something like this would have taken to build. Sure it was billed as a 1967 but the chassis is likely older and maybe it is old enough that the 304 was the big engine in that year.

Yes, I forgot about the intro dates on those engines. In one of the pieces I read, it said that Mohs was going to offer a Model B with the 549 inch V8. Maybe he wasn’t too happy with the performance of the 304.

The 549 would have been a serious feat to get in there, they are huge and literally weigh half a ton. Don’t know if the torsion bar IFS could handle it and of course it wouldn’t have done much for the ride and handling which was the strong point of the IFS equipped trucks.

A couple of years ago I found a copy of a self published book by the Opera Sedan’s builder called The Amayzing Mr. Mohs (Mr Mohs has a healthy ego). Both the Opera sedan and the SafariKar were built to showcase certain technologies Bruce Mohs had developed and patented.

Of those, the Swing-and-Sway Safety Seats got the closest to production. They are designed to pivot back in an impact letting the seat bottom absorb energy and protect occupants in a crash. As crazy as this feature sounds, in that heyday of the Nader-ite nazis, manufacturers were willing to consider almost anything that might give them an edge in the quest for automotive safety. Mr. Mohs brought the Opera Sedan down to Dearborn to demonstrate the Swing and Sway seats to the Ford Motor Company, who considered them for its upcoming Lincoln Mark III. Unfortunately, the seats took up too much interior space, even in the big Lincoln.

Having had a strange facination with the Mohs Opera Sedan ever since reading about it in a Motor Trend piece back in 1975 (or ’76), I enjoyed your article very much. The Opera Sedan reportedly is residing in a museum in Roscoe, IL.

I read that very same Motor Trend article, and it was the first thing I thought of when I saw this post. I was thinking ’76; I was only five years old at the time, but I think I may have come across it when it was a couple of years old. I want to say there was a Pontiac Firebird on the cover.

Yeah I think it would be hard to roll this considering its weight, much of which is relatively low and the track width. The Travelall has a fairly wide track width at least in the front with the IFS and those wheels with the serious negative offset had to increase the track width substantially. I feel very sorry for those outer front wheel bearings with those wheels.

The “Homer” is spot-on. I’ve only ever seen pix of this car by itself, not really to scale with anything else. It’s really badly designed, in terms of styling. The proportions are awful. It really looks home-made with a twinge of art-car baked in.

It’s like the stuff I used to draw when I was 12, before I understood proportion and scale and how to effectively use them to convey an idea.

Thank you thank you thank you Paul, I’ve been looking for more photos of these cars for years and they are very difficult to get information on. They were a big star in a book I had growing up; Lemons: The World’s Worst Cars. Most of the cars in that book were really only guilty of bizarre design decisions, I found it quite entertaining and there’s a lot of cars in it I’d be thrilled to actually drive (looking at you, Chrysler Airflow and Suzuki Samurai).

They should have offered a badge-engineered version to Studebaker – they could have called it the Land Bruiser.

I have never, ever seen reference to this. Wow. Just wow. Not only is this extremely unattractive, but the amount of front overhang is just mind-boggling on a basic RWD International chassis. I can imagine that there was a lot of “Yes Sir” involved in the styling.

According to the information in Uniroyal Engineered Products’ ads, naugas shed their hides naturally – sort of like a molting process – so fortunately no naugas were harmed in the making of this monstrosity.

It was listed as a current model in the Auto Club of Italy “World Cars” books at least through the mid-70s, as well as several other encyclopedic guidebooks. I had always wondered how many were built, and it’s almost amazing that it was theoretically on offer for at least eight years and nobody, nobody, not one soul stepped up and said “I want one too, Bruce!”

This intrigues me as well – no one ever bought one? You would have thought Idi Amin, Pappa Doc or some crazed dictator somewhere would have put their deposit down. Was this the only car ever not to secure a single buyer? I suppose the real question is was he really trying to sell any or was it all a publicity stunt for individual inventions that were part of the car?

Having lived in Madison for several years (the bulk of the ’90s), this doesn’t surprise me that much, though I never actually saw any of these vehicles while I was there. The name “Mohs” did sound familiar–a Dr. Frederic Mohs, who also lived in Madison, was a pioneer in skin cancer surgery (“Mohs Surgery” techniques–yes, I did have to google that). My guess is that they are related. Your call as to which Mr. Mohs made the more lasting contribution to society!

Don’t know about hardness, but Bruces father was a surgeon at University of Wisconsin an alumni that invented the first machine used in cancer surgery. His name was Fredrich. Bruce also has a brother Fred Mohs who is a prominent lawyer and developer in Madison WI.

I learned of this in the back of my copy of the Std. Catalog of American cars in the early ’80s, and saw maybe one more reference since then. This is by far the best coverage. Fun piece on a wild creation.

I learned of this in the back of my copy of the Std. Catalog of American cars

They seem to have made it into a lot of reference books, which is kinda surprising. The only thing that really separates Mohs from many other hideous and ridiculous customs is that you could, in theory, buy one – not that anyone did, apparently!

But that’s an interesting distinction. Why is this a “production car” and a homebuilt rat rod from someone’s backyard isn’t? Pretty much only because Bruce Mohs said it was and managed to convince a bunch of other people too. I assume that if any were actually sold, they also would have been titled/registered as a Mohs (as I’m guessing this one is) rather than an International, which would be typical of a custom car.

I had a similar thought about King Midget when that article ran. The only thing that made those a “car”, as opposed to a motorized toy, was that their builder called them “cars” and they fit a legal definition of the word back then.

Because King Midgets were legally considered cars when new, they still are today – you can drive them on any public roads! And because Mohs were offered for sale as “new cars” 45 years ago, that’s the way we still view them rather than as one-off customs.

And what does that all mean? Nothing at all, I just think it’s interesting!

As far as how it would be registered it would have been a Mohs. The Glassic which loosely resembled a Model A but was built on a Scout 800 chassis were registered as Glassics. Moneteverdi and Felber who converted Scout IIs using some of the original body parts were also not registered as Internationals. Monteverdi’s Aspen/Volare re-hash were also sold and registered as Monteverdi. IH was quite acomodating and were willing to sell incomplete vehicles, even to individuals if you knew how to order them. Or in some cases if you didn’t know how to order them and left out something important like axles or engines. Of course back then it was common for truck companies to sell what is known as a glider. A glider is a truck delivered less engine, trans and rear axle(s) so it wasn’t too far off from that.

You can still purchase a new semi tractor or other heavy/medium truck as a glider today. Given you can take a pre emissions controls engine that has been rebuilt and drop it into a brand new “wrapper” they have had something of a resurgence.

Eric VanBuren

Posted July 22, 2014 at 10:38 PM

I’m surprised that the gov’t hasn’t closed that loophole due to those new emissions laws.

“ISLE LIGHTS” LOL, that’s great! Maybe this is the genesis of GM’s “CHECK GAGES” goof – an inside joke from a bunch of engineers who saw this car on its trip to Detroit?

The SafariKar was an object of particular fascination to me for many years. I had a copy of Lemons: The World’s Worst Cars when I was a young’n and the section on Mohs, despite being disparaging, made it sound way more interesting than it actually was. They only showed one grainy little B&W photo of partially assembled SafariKars and the most complete one looked something like a Land Rover Defender sedan, if that makes any sense. Plus they described it as being 4WD, having an International V8 and a large & luxurious interior that could double as a camper, but with every modern convenience at your fingertip! And to top it all off, the Ostentatienne Opera Sedan, which wasn’t shown, was only described as “even wilder”.

So when I finally came across more pictures and info on them many years later, it was a huge letdown. I had assumed the SafariKar was a cross between a Range Rover and VW Westphalia somehow squeezed into a ginormo-sedan package. Maybe that’s actually what its intentions were, but the finished product was nothing like that at all. And Mohs’ earlier effort? OMFG…

Even though they didn’t live up to my delusions about a blurb in a coffee table book from 20 years earlier, I still have admiration for these insane creations. The Ostentatienne Opera Sedan is easily the most ridiculous American car ever built. No question – and it really is such a perfect “American car”: conservative and rugged mechanically, but over-the-top gaudy on the outside!

This car is a living piece of folklore, I almost can’t believe that it still exists and has been (mostly) restored. Supposedly Bruce Mohs regularly drove it on errands and whatnot for many years before it got too decrepit. Imagine driving through the main drag of any decent-sized town back in 1967 and taking in the bright, pulsing neon signs through all that glass, isle lights aglow?

The actual seating space for such a monstrous car is not all that generous. But the visibility is splendid. Given the lack of real pillars, the roof appears to be cantilevered. Mohs was a bit obsessed on safety, which explains some of the protuberances and such. But the cantilevered roof probably didn’t give much roll-over protection.

Just realized… it also looks like the roof (and entry hatch) are made out of wood!

I had to squint to see it but there it is… so is the roll bar made of wood, too? If not for the necessity of destroying the car, I’d love to see that tested. Seriously doubt it’d hold up – think about how skinny those pieces of metal must be! If they actually exist, they have to be tucked just inside of the wooden door frame, have curves that roughly match the roofline and one sharp bend to attach all the way back at the rear section of the frame.

You know, it does look like a plane from the inside. I think had the front overhang and grill been toned down, it would look attractive. Maybe a downward snout, Charger Daytona style.
The side profile, ignoring the over hang, is nice.

Could be mistaken for a 50s Futurama car.

The Safarikar though…interesting construction but definitely not that attractive.
Wonder what happened to the non-surviving one. Maybe a rhino saw it and got upset and rammed it?

Never thought I would see this car again, but viola! here it is. Totally unique in every sense of the word, it has enough style for two cars.Must handle like a tank and get miserable gas mileage, but who cares? It seems to be built like the proverbial brick s-ithouse, but thats the idea. Just love that Rolls Royce style grill and the aircraft inspired interior!

I attended UW Madison from 1967-1971. I remember seeing the Mohs Ostientatienne on the streets of western Madison and Middleton esp. in ’70-’71 when we lived west of Lake Mendota. The Mohs family lived near our apt. complex (Sunrise Heights, Middleton)

I went to elementary school in Middleton and was in the same class as Mohs daughter Peggy, who I think is the little girl standing next to the big wheel in one of the old ads above. We had a field trip in third or fifth grade to the “car factory” where they made those things. Fun.

I got to see a SafariKar up close at the Imperial Palace Auto Collection in Las Vegas back in 1989. Closeness doesn’t help – it was still hideous. Sadly, the collection closed its doors a few years back.

It’s funny, these cars came out when I was at the height of my consumption of Road & Track, plus British magazines like Motorsport, even the German Auto Motor und Sport. It was not covered in those publications.

By the way, I have had Mohs surgery. If the two Mohs are related, it’s a good thing that the surgeon had the talent for precision and subtlety, which is what Mohs surgery is all about. Not words one would use to describe anything about these cars.

Mr. Mohs and his doings appeared in the Madison State Journal now and then–interesting/eccentric guy. (BTW, the paper always says there was just this *one* copy of the car.) Here’s some of his 1987 activity:

“I got to see a SafariKar up close at the Imperial Palace Auto Collection in Las Vegas back in 1989. Closeness doesn’t help – it was still hideous. Sadly, the collection closed its doors a few years back.”

I knew I’d seen it somewhere. I attended the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas from 1981-2001 and always tried to wander through the Imperial Palace collection. It was quite an exhibit in it’s time including several Duesenbergs.

I think its not nearly mean and angry looking enough to sell to the public. Connect it to the interwebs (a series of tubes!) and blueteeth it up and watch them fly off the (very large) shelves! Call it the Armageddon Mark I.